Category Archives: Tofu

Hey guess what? Remember I told you (a few minutes ago) about The Tofu Project? Well, the great news is that we’re opening up one slot–a chance to spend 7 days in SF with some major time designers, entrepreneurs, journos, VCs, and generally fun people–to one young person we don’t know about yet. The contest is sponsored by Mixi and will be open to submissions from July 22-24 JST. Deets below:

I’ve been so wrapped up in planning The Tofu Project that I’ve neglected to tell the TokyoMango community about it! Sorry!

For the past few months, my designer/photographer friend Tomo and I have been working our balls off to put together a seven-day innovation boot camp for 10 of the most amazing entrepreneurs from Japan. I think I brought up the idea to Joi Ito in January, and he encouraged me to run with it. Now, we have sponsorships from Digital Garage and Mixi (more to come!) and a stellar advisory team that includes Dave McClure of 500 Startups, John Maeda from RISD, and, of course, Joi, who is the new director of the MIT Media Lab.

Here’s an intro video we made a few months ago that describes it in a bit more detail:

I am also the founder of The Tofu Project, a boutique program that helps Japanese entrepreneurs and creators think deeper, tell better stories, and go out into the world in a much bigger way. We work with companies like Mixi, Japan Airlines, and Salesforce.com.

Sometimes I try to explain Japanese culture on CNN, BBC, CBC, WSJ, ABC (so many acronyms!) or in person at places like the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan, ETech, and Ignite!